Business

Can a New Tool for Sellers Take on Etsy and Amazon Marketplace?

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Quick Pitch: Shoply is a free, quick and easy way for sellers to open a shop and start selling online. It's also efficient and safe for buyers to discover and transact with them.

Genius Idea: Setting up an e-commerce site can be an elaborate and time-consuming process for independent sellers — a process Shoply has sharply streamlined to attract businesses and individuals new to the e-commerce space.

It takes all but a few minutes to set up a basic shop with an e-mail address and store name, logo, description and custom URL. Users can list up to 10 products, create an additional page (perhaps for an "about me" or a note on shipping policies) and accept payments through PayPal for free. Shoply charges a reasonable 6% sales commission plus a $1.99 flat fee for every item sold.

The only major drawback? Besides the 10-product limit, users can only upload one image for each item. Shoply will soon begin offering premium options to relax these tight allowances, in addition to decreasing its cut of the sales.

Unlike Etsy or Amazon Marketplace, there are no restrictions on what kinds of merchandise or services you can list. Shoply Founder and CEO Liad Shababo told us that some users have set up shops to quickly dispose of furniture and other goods because they're moving between apartments or graduating from college.

Given that Shoply is a recent startup, the site is of course well-integrated with a number of social networks. Sellers can add links to many of their social networking profiles and push out updates to Facebook and Twitter when they add new merchandise. In addition, Shoply's Facebook app lets sellers add a tab to their Facebook profiles so that interested buyers can browse their offerings directly on Facebook — they'll have to complete transactions on Shoply's website, however.

Although Shoply's breezy interface, lack of listing fees and social networking integrations will appeal to many, the platform is missing some of the most-prized features of other marketplaces for independent sellers. Like a similar startup we reviewed a few months ago, Tinypay.me, Shoply lacks seller and product ratings, instead suggesting that users leverage the legitimacy offered by their social networking profiles to establish trust with potential buyers. And unlike eBay, Etsy and Amazon Marketplace, Shoply itself is not a destination site and will not drive significant traffic to its users' stores, nor does it offer the same carefully engineered search and recommendations engines as its competitors, nor the community elements so prized by Etsy users. Like Tinypay.me, sellers must depend on their own networks to market their goods.

Nevertheless, Shoply is off to a promising start. Since its launch last month, the platform has attracted about 800 active sellers with more than 3,000 products, Shababo informed us. Shoply also plans to introduce a full read/write API and customizable design themes for stores this month, with an affiliate marketing scheme and embeddable widgets to follow.

What do you think of the platform? Does Shoply offer enough to compete against the likes of Etsy, eBay and Amazon Marketplace? What additional features could give it the upper hand?

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